Nifty may head for 4,425 if it goes below 4,550. A close above 4,685 is needed to hit 4,820

Concerns about the domestic slowdown and the weak Asian markets resulted in the Indian bourses closing lower for the fourth straight day. Today the Nifty crossed the second level of support of 4580, by hitting a low of 4,556, the lowest since 3 November 2009. If the index breaks the level of 4,550, we may see it going down to 4,425. However, for the benchmark to regain some strength, it has to close above 4,685, after which we may see some gains up to 4,820. The National Stock Exchange (NSE) saw a volume of 60.30 crore shares, which is above its 10 day moving average.

Extending its losses into the fourth day, the Indian market opened lower tracking the weak Asian markets in morning trade. A possible downgrade of France’s sovereign rating by Fitch, amid the unending Eurozone debt crisis, also made investors jittery. The Nifty fell 29 points to open trade at 4,623 and the Sensex resumed trade at 15,440, a loss of 51 points over its previous close. The opening figures on both benchmarks were their intraday highs.

All sectoral indices led by banking were in the negative in early trade. The market was range-bound in subsequent trade in the absence of any domestic triggers.

The market fell to its intraday low in post noon trade following reports that research firm CLSA downgraded India to ‘neutral’ from ‘overweight’ in its Asia-Pacific relative-return portfolio. In a note the agency said that India’s problems were self-induced and the government sought to blame on the European crisis for its ills.  At the lows, the Nifty touched 4,556 and the Sensex declined to 15,191.

Value-picking after the indices touched the day’s low helped the market paring some of the losses in post-noon trade. However, the market settled in the red for the fourth day in a row. The Nifty erased 39 points to end the day at 4,613 and the Sensex declined 112 points to close at 15,379.

The advance-decline ratio on the NSE was 303:1421.

The broader indices underperformed the Sensex today as the BSE Mid-cap index declined 1.99% and the BSE Small-cap index tanked 2.50%.

The marginal recovery in the post-noon session enabled three of the 13 sectoral indices— BSE Oil & Gas (up 0.96%); BSE Fast Moving Consumer Goods (up 0.61%) and BSE Auto (up 0.22%)—close in the green. The laggards were led by BSE Capital Goods (down 3.48%); BSE Bankex (down 3.08%); BSE Realty (down 2.89%); BSE Power (down 1.60%) and BSE PSU (down 1.59%).

Tata Motors (up 4.44%); Coal India (up 1.89%); Reliance Industries (up 1.78%); Hindustan Unilever (up 1.07%) and ITC (up 0.95%) were the top gainers on the Sensex. The key losers were Larsen & Toubro (down 4.06%); BHEL (down 3.70%); Jindal Steel (down 3.32%); DLF (down 3.05%) and State Bank of India (down 2.91%).

Tata Motors (up 4.41%); Cairn India (up 4.06%); SAIL (up 3.48%); Coal India (up 1.98%) and RIL (up 1.96%) topped the Nifty list. The main losers on the index were Axis Bank (down 5.91%); L&T (down 4.13%); Punjab National Bank (down 4.05%); Reliance Communications (down 3.51%) and Jindal Steel (down 3.49%).

The Asian pack settled lower following reports of the demise of North Korean leader Kim Jong il. The news, which raised concerns about political instability in the region, saw the Seoul Composite plunging as much as 4.4% in intraday trade. Stocks in China fell as data over the weekend revealed that housing prices increased at the slowest pace in a year.

The Shanghai Composite lost 0.30%; the Hang Seng declined 1.18%; the Nikkei 225 fell by 1.26%; the Straits Times tanked 1.55%; the Seoul Composite tumbled 3.43% and the Taiwan Weighted settled 2.24% lower. Bucking the trend, the Jakarta Composite added 0.05% and the KLSE Composite rose 0.14%.

Back home, foreign institutional investors were net sellers of equities totalling Rs220.25 crore on Friday. On the other hand, domestic institutional investors were net buyers of shares amounting to Rs335.30 crore.

Sundaram BNP Paribas Home Finance, the home finance subsidiary of Sundaram Finance, is set to garner home loan disbursement business target of Rs1,800 crore for the fiscal 2011-12. The company has already crossed home loan disbursements of Rs1210 crore in less than three quarters and is confident of achieving its full year target. Sundaram Finance added 0.03% to close at Rs505 on the NSE.

Orchid Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals has received sanction of $100 million (around Rs532 crore) by way of external commercial borrowings (ECBs) from a consortium of Indian banks to redeem its outstanding Foreign Currency Convertible Bonds (FCCBs), which falls due in February 2012. The ECBs and the internal accruals would support the company to redeem the outstanding FCCB of $117 million (Rs622 crore), the company said. The stock plunged 9.26% to settle at Rs122.50 on the NSE.

Cardiac Science Corporation, a subsidiary of medical equipment-maker Opto Circuits is supplying cardiac devices to various football clubs in Australia as part of a campaign to reduce deaths from sudden cardiac arrest under the ‘Defib Your Club, For Life’ campaign. The campaign ‘Defib Your Club, For Life’ was sparked by the on-field death of a young player, Stephen Buckman, in May 2010. Buckman, 19, collapsed from SCA during training. Opto Circuits declined 3.99% to end at Rs187.50 on the NSE.